International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Tuesday that he will soon ask for authorization to launch a formal crimes against humanity investigation in Ivory Coast.

The prosecutor said he would ask the ICC's top chamber to back an inquiry into events since a presidential election in November which incumbent refused to recognize.

Hundreds are said to have died in the unrest before internationally-recognized leader Alassane Ouattara finally ousted his rival last month.

"If the chamber authorizes that we can start the investigation, we can go to Ivory Coast and collect evidence," Moreno-Ocampo said.

Moreno-Ocampo said that without the operation by UN peacekeepers and French troops, Ivory Coast would probably have become a new Rwanda genocide.

"It was remarkable how the UN, supported by France, managed to control the situation," he said. "It is a new way to manage conflict. They avoided a new Rwanda," Moreno-Ocampo said referring to the killing of 800,000 people in the central African nation in the early 1990s.

(AFP)